


cut strings

by whomademeadegenerate



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, Human rights violations, Intergenerational Trauma, PTSD, So much angst, War Crimes, because i just rewatched "the puppetmaster" and hama deserved better, kind of a fixit but not really, not really described in detail but the fire nation did some shit y'all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:01:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24343180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whomademeadegenerate/pseuds/whomademeadegenerate
Summary: Winning a war is always easier than picking up the pieces.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 74





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It had been one of the more heated arguments between them. Hakoda had taken a step back, saying he was too biased to intervene, so it had been her against the boys. Two against one.

"I just think it's impractical," Sokka had argued.

"You don't understand what kind of people are locked up in there, Katara," Zuko had said pleadingly. "The political prisoners, we've set them free already. But there are psychopaths, murderers, rapists - "

"You know what was impractical? A group of teenagers taking on the Fire Nation," Katara had retorted. "And I know what kind of people are in there, Zuko! I know it's dangerous. But the Fire Nation is giving up its colonies and its claims to authority outside its borders. That has to include the right to judge _anyone_ from the other nations - including criminals."

Zuko had folded his arms. "Even if their crimes were against Fire Nation citizens?"

"You don't see _us_ asking for every soldier who marched through the Earth Kingdom - "

Finally, Aang had stepped forward and put a hand on her shoulder. "Katara's right," he had said softly. "This is what it means to restore the balance. It'll be hard, but we have to start somewhere."

There was more grumbling. There was even more grumbling from the Fire Nation nobles and former war leaders - some of whom Zuko had spared, when it could be proven that they hadn't committed any war crimes. That they hadn't been ordered to.

("I can't lock up the entire upper echelon of the Fire Nation army, Katara," Zuko had said tiredly. "The nobles would riot. So much change in only a few months - if we're to keep the peace, I have to keep control. And that means making some concessions.")

But in the end, with the backing of the other two nations and the Avatar - who also happened to be the sole representative of the Air Nomads - the decision moved forward. All foreign prisoners would be returned to their homes, who would deal with them as they saw fit. Sokka's part of the plan was that leaders from each nation had to oversee the release and transport of their own people, both to ensure that they were treated fairly and to ensure that no one was...overlooked.

Aang had been surprised when Katara volunteered to help oversee the Water Tribe prisoners. Sokka hadn't.

And…

She'd asked her dad, after the battle, but all the high risk prisoners had been kept in individual cells and prevented from seeing each other. And she suspected the person she was looking for would have been kept away from others regardless.

Mai met her at the Boiling Rock. They regarded each other warily; there was still some tension, even now, when they met as allies instead of enemies. (Zuko had turned pink and muttered something about misunderstandings and girl benders, when Katara asked, which she did _not_ want to think about too hard.)

"You're going alone for this last one?" the stoic girl said at last. At Katara's nod, she rolled her eyes. "Figures. None of you have any self preservation."

Katara smiled tightly and tried her best to make cheery small talk - which Mai firmly rebuffed - as they walked down the grim halls. Finally, after a lift down what felt like several floors, they reached a large metal door; Mai pressed the Warden's Seal in the center indentation and it slid open.

In front of them was...another door.

Mai tossed her the keys and a pair of cuffs. "If you're not out in five minutes, I'll assume you're dead," she said, somehow managing to sound more bored than before.

In a way, it was a show of trust. In another, it was - as Mai had said earlier - self preservation. "Thank you," Katara said, half-meaning it, and slid the key into its lock.

She'd thought she was prepared, but what was inside still made her shrink back in horror.

The stink of feces and urine. Cuffs against the wall for all four limbs. Metal shackles in the shape of gloves, meant to keep a bender from ever exercising her power. And inside them, a skeleton.

Who opened her mouth and grinned with yellow teeth. "Come to finish me off, Fire Nation scum?" Hama sang, her voice like ice cracking open beneath your feet. "Come closer. Come and bring your lovely, blood-filled body with you..."

Katara had to remember to swallow. When she could find words, her voice was shaky. "Hama, it's me."

She could see Hama squinting, adjusting to the light. She could see the moment when Hama saw her. 

"Katara," Hama breathed, and it _hurt_ , because she actually sounded sane - and then the battered body lurched forward as if she was trying to throw herself off the cell wall. Her eyes bulged, her grin stretched. "Did you do it? Did you kill them all? Excellent! Excellent work, Katara! I _knew_ you were a good pupil. A good girl. Stole the blood right out of their veins, did you? My clever student..."

Katara forced herself to step forward. "No, Hama," she said softly. "I didn't kill them."

And she hadn't. People had died - she knew that, it was a war - but they hadn't killed anyone just for being Fire Nation, the way Hama had. For revenge. Even her own personal revenge, the fear and rage that had driven her nightmares - that had been just a man. A coward. A giant shadow, cast by a tiny source.

She saw now that Hama was still cowering in that shadow.

"But you used it?" the old woman was saying gleefully. "You used it, like I said you would!"

"Only once," Katara said, "and it was the wrong person, and I didn't kill him. But we still won. The war's over."

She was close enough, now, to see the matted grey hair, the sallow skin, the sunken eyes. The grin that twisted into a snarl. "You're naive, Katara. The war will never be over. Until we kill them all - until we kill them all, Katara, we'll never be safe! We'll never have revenge!" Her voice dropped. "You can do it, my young bloodbender. You can..."

"I'm not a bloodbender!" Katara snapped, chills running through her. _You're wrong. You're wrong, why can't you see that? That would make us no different from the Fire Nation!_ "I am not a bloodbender... and you're not, either." She straightened her shoulders. "You're a _waterbender._ "

How long had it been, since Hama had seen the moon? 

How much longer since she had felt her breath condense into frozen mist, the gentle cradle of waves, the crunch of ice under her feet? The night she'd told her story and fed them five flavor soup, Katara had lay in bed and felt the ache she always felt for home, and tried to imagine feeling it for months, for years, without thinking she could ever return, and cried herself to sleep.

Now she raised her voice and said the same words she'd said a dozen times already: "Hama of the Southern Water Tribe: I, Katara, call you to me as the daughter of your chief. You will return with me to be judged before the ocean and beneath the moon, and your tribe will be your witness."

For the first time since she'd stepped into the cell, it was utterly silent.

Katara bit her lip, gazing at the woman who had once given her a glimmer of hope that she wasn't alone in the world, and then taken that hope away. "Please, Hama. Let's go home."

Silence.

"You're lying."

Katara flinched. "Hama - "

" _You're lying!_ " Spittle flew in her face as Hama screamed, her eyes wild. "This is another Fire Nation trick, isn't it? Oh, I should've known."

"Hama, please - "

"They've sent you to torment me! You're in cahoots - you, and the Fire Nation, what did they promise you? You spit on your mother's memory - "

Tears rolling down her cheeks, Katara struck.

Ty Lee had taught them all the pressure point to knock someone unconscious, in case any of the prisoners became difficult, but Katara hadn't wanted to use it unless she had to; even without carrying her, she could tell that Hama was too light, the flutter of her heart too fragile, for such a blow.

But she also knew what Hama could do. 

She unlocked the chains and brought the old woman onto her back as gently as she could. She had a flask of water on her hip, as always, but water healing would do no good here. Hama had no wounds or broken bones or infections; what she had was old age, and starvation, and the kind of pain that only Spirit Water could touch.

In a show of uncharacteristic kindness, Mai made no comments as Katara walked out, although she did wrinkle her nose at the smell. Sokka was waiting for them outside with two Fire Nation soldiers carrying a stretcher; Hama wasn't the first prisoner they'd found in poor condition.

"Wow," her brother breathed, eyes wide, "she looks...awful."

It was worse in broad daylight. Katara gently set Hama down on the stretcher and tried not to cry again. _I need to wash her, get her clean,_ she thought numbly. _We need to get some food in her, and some water. Tui and La, how will she make the journey on ship? And surrounded by water, how will they be safe -_

Suddenly, the heat rising from the lava around them was unbearable.

"Sokka?"

"Yeah?"

She swallowed, looked up at the sun. The same sun - somehow angrier than the sun over the Poles, more suffocating. 

“Let’s go home.”


End file.
